SATYAMEVA JAYATE

"So far as I am able to judge, nothing has been left undone, either by man or nature, to make India the most extraordinary country that the sun visits on his rounds. Nothing seems to have been forgotten, nothing overlooked." - - - Mark Twain

Friday, September 29, 2006

In the most basic terms – ‘Chaos Theory’ states that even though some things might seem chaotic on the surface – there can be a genuine function associated with them. That in order for something to be functional – a proper order – or a concrete symmetric form isn’t necessary. That if you look close enough – patterns will start to emerge – that order can be found in chaos – and even great Beauty!

Given my infinitesimal knowledge of fractal geometry – that’s all I ever thought about chaos theory ……… until recently when I thought I had caught a rare string – and so I followed that thought and traced it to a point where it became absolutely imperative for me to write a blog on it.

Being a Virgo I had this obsessive need to make sense out of everything – to find an order in all events. While I don’t believe in sun signs and horoscopes anymore than I believe in ghosts – I am forced to admit that I do display many characteristics of a typical Virgo. Anyways – so the point of this ‘personal revelation’ exercise is to say that I used to worry about a lot of things – most of the things and used to get really upset if they didn’t seem in the order I wanted them to be.

And so I wanted to see order in Life – while its possible to some extent – there can never be a total harmony to life – and for some infant reason it irritated me. The matter of fact is that our lives are seldom ever isolated – unh hn – they are inter linked with other lives – the lives of our friends – and loved ones – and our enemies at that. And as much as we want certain events in our life to deliver a positive outcome – because of these links and the inherent chaos in everyone else’s life – things sometimes do not turn out to be the way we would have wished them to be. It happened with an incident in my life – quite recently in fact.

In the process of admonishing nature for making life so messy- I thought well you know … maybe there is a beauty to this chaos – and maybe its function and harmony lie in the mess it creates. No matter what our personal tragedies – and no matter how many of them we have faced – it would take a dumb of the first order to deny that there is still incredible beauty and an undeniable purpose to each life created. Like chaos theory – it takes a close look to discover the subtle patterns in life.

Consider an analogy – imagine you trace the words L I F E in chalk on the floor – now you fill the borders of these letters with sugar – and you open a can of ants and let them roam the floor – given sufficient distance between the letters – sooner or later all ants will get busy collecting sugar within the traced borders. If you see life from an ant’s point of view – theres total chaos – ants running into each other giving messages – but following wherever they can find sugar and bringing it back to the core. Even on a top view – if you look into the details of one letter – you wouldn’t see a lot to appreciate – but take yourself higher – to a level where the letters now are clear and they appear filled – you will see

L I F E. And there in lies the pattern – a beauty.

So may be GOD did put us all into borders and made us chase sugar – greed – money – sex – fame – pleasure. And while our lives collide with each other – and give them an appearance of total chaos – he might actually be seeing a whole different picture.

Try as I may – I am still earth bound – still an ant inside the borders and while I can imagine – I cannot – and not any other mortal for that matter see – what the true pattern of life is. But maybe its meant not to be figured out – maybe its just taking relief in the fact that there is an eye watching over us all.

An astronomical collision eliminated dinosaurs – since then – so much time has passed – with the universe still potent of a similar attack – yet – earth survives – things have gone past us and hit the moon (craters don’t seem beautiful now – do they?) – What is it that governs the universe? What is it that makes some things break – and in the destruction make others? Even the wisest can only speculate! Its like trying to see the bigger picture.

Wow! Someday you know – I would like to make a ladder of all ants and climb on top and see whats really goin on.